In the Year of the Ox, Ting-An decided to plow his fields and sow them
with animals instead of plants. He bought the animal seeds from an old
monk who appeared, coincidentally enough, the same day that Ting-An got
his brilliant idea.
The price for the seeds? Ting-An's wife. Ting-An considered it a
bargain, however, and even the old monk wore an irritated expression as he
hobbled off with her.
But without his wife, Ting-An had no one to help him till the ground. He
approached the ox—who had always been a better listener than his wife,
and was quite a bit stronger, too—and said, "If you help me till the soil and
plant these seeds, I will make you king over all the creatures that grow in
my fields." The ox agreed.
The harsh winter had turned the ground as hard as stone. Ting-An and
the ox worked themselves for hours in the morning and hours in the
afternoon and even more hours at night. They grew lean from their labors,
but soon the ground was ready to be sown.
In the first row, Ting-An planted porcupines, because he thought they
were ugly and he always forgot to water the first row anyway. In the second
row, he dropped fat brown pellets that he hoped would grow into succulent
pigs. In subsequent rows he planted geese, horses, deer, chickens, oxen, and
wolves.
He was a little unsure about the wolves. He suspected his wife would
have talked him out of those, if she had still been there. But Ting-An had
